Review: Dark Matter

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dark Matter
by Blake Crouch
Hardcover, 342 pages
Published July 26th 2016 by Crown

Wow, just wow.  I could stop there and let you read the book and  find out why it's hard to talk about.  But, I will not leave you hanging.  First I will tell you about why the book is unique.  
1.) It's kind of hard to describe without giving spoilers or rather without the temptation to just tell you how it ends.
2.) Physics

Jason Dessen is a physics teacher in a small college in the Chicago suburbs.  His friend wins an award in biochemistry for the work Jason helped with.  He's a little bitter but not much, It is his friend after all.  After leaving the celebration Jason is abduction by a stranger in a mask.   The last thing Jason hears before he goes unconscious is the stranger asking, "Are you happy with your life?"

Next thing Jason knows he is strapped to a gurney in a room full of strangers wearing hazmat suits.  The next thing he hears is a stranger  saying, "Welcome back."  Jason soon learns that he is the genius behind this facility and is highly regarded by all the staff.  Jason thinks he's going crazy. He doesn't remember any of this and only remembers his life with his wife and son.

What soon begins is a run through the multiverse.  Every decision you make changes your life, but what happens if you made the other decision is something this book approaches.   Jason in one life has invented a box that allows him to travel through the multiverse and visit the different versions of his life.   All Jason wants is to go back home to his reality, but with infinite multiverse versions of his life it becomes like finding one particular grain of sand on a beach.

This book kept me enthralled throughout the many jumps between the multiverses and even more so when times became desperate for Jason.  The end of the book will keep you wondering, what if?

Blake Crouch, the author, is the reason I read this book.  I had seen the Wayward Pines TV series and wanted to read those books but found this one first.   This book will soon be a major motion picture, but I suggest reading it before you see the movie.

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